The man is in outer space

[wildcrazy442000]

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04...ts-from-space/

No word if tin foil hats will help.

[jcauseyfd]

A bear in the air!!! Way up in the air!

[BThayer23]

I'm screwed if this ever makes it to NC...

[GokartPilot]

I'm screwed if this ever makes it to NC...

Thats why NC came up with that License Plate Holder Law, so they could take a better picture from space!!

[blitzcat]

Thats odd, the first article I read said they were going to monitor your GPS id between points, and only capture your plate if you exceeded some speed criterion. And I was just going to say goodbye to my GPS.

I'll just get a larger plinth to overhang the plate on my mini if its a purely optical system. So many vehicles have plates in positions that are unreadable from high angles that I'm not concerned yet.

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I thought about the angles of this working. I don't see how this will work. If the sat is a gyrosync orbit, it can only monitor vehicles headed away from it to see the rear plate. A lot of time the bird will be too far overhead to read it- it has to be at an angle to read it. So gyrosync seems unlikely.
If it is in a regular orbit, its only going to be above you at a usable angle a fraction of the time. Maybe 12% of every orbit. You know when the bird is coming- radar detectors with GPS will know where you and the bird are , and just tell you to slow down.

You can always cheat and camber your plate 5-10 degrees toward the earth with a couple washers, further reducing the amount of time a satellite can read it.

This is a system that will make revenue off everyone except people who already take countermeasures (detector, CB, trapster, etc) already. Because unless you fly a bunch of birds, its deflatable.

[wildcrazy442000]

Yeah even if it does work somehow, think of all the tickets they would have to write just to break even.

[GokartPilot]

I had to go back and verify the date, make sure it wasn?t published on the 1st of April. I am with Matt, I just don't see how this would work. How would the system identify what vehicle was speeding so they could take a picture of the plates? Even if you only placed cameras in areas or zones that you are required to slow down, school, hospital, fire departments ?? the price tag for cameras alone would be ridiculous. If you could tag the vehicle a two camera system would work without the satellite, still be expensive.

[wildcrazy442000]

If they tag you with GPS, it would be your cell phone you would have to worry about not your GPS Navigation.

[BlimeyCabrio]

The company's website appears to be down - so I can't access the PDF that provides more details on how this works. I don't know where the "satellite camera" comes into play - I think that may be wrong - misinterpreted by whoever wrote the article who didn't understand their system. I think the system uses ground-based traffic cameras with license plate number recognition technology at two points on the ground. Records each plate number that passes point A on the ground along with the time... then when it passes point B... then calculates the average speed. If average speed > speed limit, ZING, you got a ticket. Probably only uses satellite for communications, and maybe GPS distance calculation (for straight roads) and time sync.

This worries me for things like the new Wake County toll road... which will use plate number recognition for charging for tolls. Because it's a pretty safe bet that I will drive pretty fast on that road from time to time...

[Agnt006]

I'd say its over for those guys at Top Gear. lol... I'm with Ben, if this hits the states, Im skrood.